Growing up in a traditional Jewish home and attending Columbia University, Kula cites the diversity of New York City in terms of people, ideas, food, and music, as an experience that automatically broke down boundaries because of the constant interaction with people of different backgrounds.

Well being born and growing up in New York City, automatically you have first a little hubris by definition ‘cause there’s nothing beyond New York City . . . though I have traveled the world and there are great cities. But I think most important, the diversity of New York City – the diversity of people, the diversity of ideas, diversity of food, music, experiences automatically forces a certain amount of your boundaries to come down because you meet people that have these experiences that are so different from whatever experiences you grew up with. I grew up in a traditional Jewish home. I wound up going to Columbia University, and literally all of a sudden an entire world was there. I was living on 116th Street, and there were more types of food that one could have in a five, six, seven block radius than one could have in whole other cities in the world. And so yet alone all the different kinds of people, and the different sounds, and the different smells. I mean and I think what that does is it opens up the boundaries. Recorded on: 8/15/07